“You’re Ava.”
“I’m that too.”
“I’ve known you since you were eight.”
“So?”
“I’ve liked you since you were eight,” he said.
Oh! I like him again, Good Ava told me.
Jump him! Rip his shorts off! Bad Ava urged.
Luke kept talking over Good Ava and Bad Ava’s blathering. “That makes you my people.”
Whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Stop right there.
I needed time to bury that deep before I set myself up to start thinking he was a good guy again only to find out he wasn’t. To buy that time, I said quietly, “Luke.”
“We’re not talking about this anymore,” Luke told me.
“We are.”
“We’re not.”
I glared. “We are. Give me something to go on here, what’s triple payment mean?” I asked, sounding kind of bitchy.
“I told you, I haven’t decided.”
“Which way are you leaning? Maid service? Vacation planning? Darning your socks?”
He threw back his head and laughed. I crossed my arms on my chest.
“This isn’t funny,” I told him.
And it wasn’t.
Before I could react, his hand snaked out and wrapped around my neck, pulling me forward with a gentle jerk and my hands came up to shield my fall. They hit his chest right before my hips slammed into his.
I tilted my head back to look at him and pulled at his hand at my neck. This served no purpose. So I glared at him and pushed against his chest. This also served no purpose.
I saw, in close proximity, that his eyes were very warm.
Eek!
Danger, danger, retreat, Ava Barlow. Retreat!
Before I could push away, he spoke, sounding lost in thought. “Maybe, part of your payment is makin’ you worry what your payment will be.”
See? There it was again.
Not.
Nice.
I pushed against his chest again and pulled my hips away. His other arm slid along my waist and pulled me back, pinning my hands and arms so they were helpless between our bodies.
“That’s really not nice,” I told him but he didn’t respond. I demanded, “Let me go.”
His eyes moved over my face and hair and then settled on my mouth. I pursed it angrily. The minute he saw the pursing of lips he did the half-grin.
“Gotta admit, I’m beginning to like the bitch.”
“Stop calling me a bitch.”
His eyes came back to mine. “Stop actin’ like one.”
“Men suck,” I told him because this was true.
“See you don’t feel like not actin’ like a bitch.”
“You suck too,” I went on, going for the gusto. Why not? I had nothing to lose.
“Babe,” he said, sounding like I was entertaining him.
“Stop calling me ‘babe’. It’s demeaning. I’m not a babe, I’m a woman.”
The fingers of his hand at my neck slid into my hair then twisted it, wrapping it around his hand. This wasn’t a rough gesture, it was a sensual one and it made tingles slide across my scalp, the good kind. I stared at him, realizing belatedly we were ultra-close and my eyes dropped back to his lips on their own accord.
“Where’s Matt with my diet?” I asked, sounding desperate and kind of breathy and not taking my eyes from his mouth. My body was going pliant and I couldn’t control it even if I tried (though, I didn’t).
I knew he felt me melting into him. I knew this because his arm around me drew me closer and his fist in my hair gently pulled my head back. This was not a good position to be in, plastered against him, arms pinned, head tilted back in a way that my face was an open target for anything he wanted to do. My eyes shifted to his, the warmer than normal warmth was still there and my knees got weak.
Shit.
I tried to pull myself together, mentally chanting “men suck” and reminding myself I knew exactly where to place the vibrator to get ultimate orgasmic pleasure, thus no fiddling around and experimenting with hitting the target like most men found difficult to do. Even so, I found it impossible with his mouth so close to me, his lips being so fantastic and my eyes dropped to them again.
They were fine.
I licked my lips.
“Ava.”
My eyes drifted back to his and I was in a Luke Lip Fog. “Yeah?”
“You lick your lips while looking at my mouth one more time, you’ll find that pretty pink tongue of yours in my mouth.”
Ho-ly shit.
His face came closer and I watched, frozen and fascinated, mainly because that meant his lips were also coming closer. His indigo eyes had melted to pure, liquid ink and I forgot totally that men sucked.
“You wanna taste me?” he murmured.
Yes, I wanted to taste him. I would pay every penny of Aunt Ella’s inheritance to taste him.
“No,” I lied.
He did a full grin this time, a full satisfied grin. It was hot, so hot my knees totally buckled and he took all my weight into his body.